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According to EA the sub based model is dead. Perhaps this occured on Feb. 29th of 2012? In which case leap years are bad for sub based MMO's? I'm not sure, EA didn't go into details but they have exit surveys which definitively proove their assertion.

In all seriousness, it's spin statements like this, and their subsequent industry media bylines and articles that keep an unhealthy ammount of ire and discussion going about this title.

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SWTOR couldn't have possibly failed because it wasn't a very good game...it HAD to be the business model, that's the ticket!

If the sub model were dead, WoW would not still have like 8 million active players.

I don't know if you are joking or serious here, but I am going to assume the former. As has been said over and over by many people in these forums, WoW is an anomoly. No MMO has been able to capture anywhere near that number for a reason. If you think MMOs fail strictly because of "being bad" (purely subjective, by the way), you have a very naive view of the market.

So you are literally saying...

"Yes, WoW still has tons of subs, but it doesn't count because it's an 'anomoly.'"

Do those dollars that WoW makes come from another planet or something? Is there a reason you can just exclude the biggest player in the MMO market from your evaluation of the sub model? Pretty sure the money that WoW subscribers pay comes from the same place as every other MMORPGs gets its money.

Also...I never said MMOs fail strictly because of being bad. I just said that SWTOR didn't fail primarily because of the sub model, and the actual product had more to do with it.

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Don't worry, when people don't stick around for the F2P version either, they'll understand the real issue.

Well. Some can only learn the hard way.

SWTOR isn't that bad a game. But it's neither flesh nor fish. They included the gear treadmill like in other MMOs, but forgot to add those little things people expected (e.g. pazaac, swoop races, non-railed space, etc.). On the other side, despite the good story telling, they didn't have the time or resources to add those little things that truly make a single player CRPG more than just a hack&slash (e.g. more NPCs to interact with for lore / informations, different NPCs to not make the game world feel so static, KOTOR has shown what could have been done with the hacking skill, etc. ).

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Originally posted by XAPGames

My interpretation is somewhat different: "The game is not worth paying for."

Once the journey was over there wasn't much reason to continue. I still believe regardless of TOR that the sub model is going to only apply to niche titles from this point forward. At least for the next few years. Far too many AAA f2p (or B2P) titles coming up on the horizon. Not to mention those already established.

For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson

It is a sign of a defeated man, to attack at ones character in the face of logic and reason- Me

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I'll wager that most of that 40% said something like "I cannot justify paying a subscription for this single player game."

Exactly. Approximately 2 million people bought this game fully aware that it was going to be a 15$ subscription. 40% imho did not want to pay the 15$ for a game that was below their expectations, not because all of a sudden they realized the game was a subscription based game. In their opinion they do not feel the game is worth the sub. If the game was better I am sure that a lot more of them would pay the money for it.

People will pay the sub if the game is worth it!

I am disappointed on how bioware and EA put all the blame on their customers and don't look at the fact that they are the ones who sold an inferior product. I hope other companies are smart enough to see this.

edit: to quote some people in this thread: "The game is not worth paying for." That about sums it up.

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SWTOR couldn't have possibly failed because it wasn't a very good game...it HAD to be the business model, that's the ticket!

If the sub model were dead, WoW would not still have like 8 million active players.

I don't know if you are joking or serious here, but I am going to assume the former. As has been said over and over by many people in these forums, WoW is an anomoly. No MMO has been able to capture anywhere near that number for a reason. If you think MMOs fail strictly because of "being bad" (purely subjective, by the way), you have a very naive view of the market.

So you are literally saying...

"Yes, WoW still has tons of subs, but it doesn't count because it's an 'anomoly.'"

Do those dollars that WoW makes come from another planet or something? Is there a reason you can just exclude the biggest player in the MMO market from your evaluation of the sub model? Pretty sure the money that WoW subscribers pay comes from the same place as every other MMORPGs gets its money.

Also...I never said MMOs fail strictly because of being bad. I just said that SWTOR didn't fail primarily because of the sub model, and the actual product had more to do with it.

Yes WoW is an anomaly. It is a statistical outlier. We can include it in the conversation because it's applicable and interesting, but you probably shouldn't treat it as equivilant to every variable in your data set if you want to be accurate concerning the actual state of the subscription model.

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I see a lot of people saying that WoW is a bad example of a succesful sub model. Some arguing that its sub numbers are inflated due to Asian time played based subs, some arguing that it is an anomoly, some arguing that people are just over invested in their charcters.

Fine, let's assume that is all true. We will disregard WoW's 8 years as a succesful sub-based model with a new expansion looming around the corner.

What about Eve? I expect to hea that Eve doesn't count because it's a niche game. Fine, let's discount Eve.

Unfortunately that doesn't explain RIft.

Before you argue that it has less subscribers then SWTOR, I would remind you that it turns a profit and is adding content at a voracious rate. Also, it is not a niche game. Rift is many regards the King Daddy of all WoW clones.

Just as an intresting asside, in general, I see several people knocking Rift for its smallish player base, and a few moments later state that SWTOR is the second most popular MMO in the West and that haing a WoW sized playerbase isn't the measuring stick for success. How they reconcile having two divergent opinions simultaneously, I'm not sure.

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SWTOR couldn't have possibly failed because it wasn't a very good game...it HAD to be the business model, that's the ticket!

If the sub model were dead, WoW would not still have like 8 million active players.

I don't know if you are joking or serious here, but I am going to assume the former. As has been said over and over by many people in these forums, WoW is an anomoly. No MMO has been able to capture anywhere near that number for a reason. If you think MMOs fail strictly because of "being bad" (purely subjective, by the way), you have a very naive view of the market.

So you are literally saying...

"Yes, WoW still has tons of subs, but it doesn't count because it's an 'anomoly.'"

Do those dollars that WoW makes come from another planet or something? Is there a reason you can just exclude the biggest player in the MMO market from your evaluation of the sub model? Pretty sure the money that WoW subscribers pay comes from the same place as every other MMORPGs gets its money.

Also...I never said MMOs fail strictly because of being bad. I just said that SWTOR didn't fail primarily because of the sub model, and the actual product had more to do with it.

Yes WoW is an anomaly. It is a statistical outlier. We can include it in the conversation because it's applicable and interesting, but you probably shouldn't treat it as equivilant to every variable in your data set if you want to be accurate concerning the actual state of the subscription model.

I don't think you can make the outlier argument here. WoW very likely has the largest effect on ANY MMORPG released. In fact, I think that WoW is the reason that most of them fail...they fail because people think WoW is a superior product. So asking to ignore it is silly.

It's almost like talking about the soft drink market, but ignoring Coke and Pepsi because they are statistically outliers compared to all the other small players.

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If they say so. I love how these companies never try to lower their sub prices to see if there is a sweet spot. Just because WOW can charge $15 a month doesn't mean SWTOR or TSW should. To them it's all or nothing.

GW2 is likely to really hurt the sub model even for WOW though. But last Decemeber the only reason SWTOR failed as a sub based game was due to an unfinished and unready product.

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"Yes, WoW still has tons of subs, but it doesn't count because it's an 'anomoly.'"

Do those dollars that WoW makes come from another planet or something? Is there a reason you can just exclude the biggest player in the MMO market from your evaluation of the sub model? Pretty sure the money that WoW subscribers pay comes from the same place as every other MMORPGs gets its money.

Also...I never said MMOs fail strictly because of being bad. I just said that SWTOR didn't fail primarily because of the sub model, and the actual product had more to do with it.

No, that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that out of the 80+ MMOs that have launched since the beginning of the genre's inception, only a handful are currently using P2P models, albeit arguably successfully, Out of those small percentage which are, only one has 8 million + subs (mostly due to Asia's contributions).

If you believe that because of that ONE title and it's unparalleled success that the market for P2P is still alive and well, well then I say you are somewhat delusioned.

TOR has its share of problems, as does any MMO. Some argue more, some less. But irregardless, the P2P model was a risky venture way back in 1998. With major studios now releasing games as F2P upon release, yes, the P2P model is dead.

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Originally posted by Torvaldr

The pure sub-based model *is* essentially dead. There is no major game title out right now that offers a pure sub-based payment option. The closest is Lineage, but it is no longer available in the West. The next would be EVE, but they also sell Isk so that isn't a pure sub model either although with "free" content updates it is close. RIFT, WoW, and all the rest offer microtransaction content to supplement the subscription.

I didn't really get that they said subscription is "officially dead". I don't see any of their other subscription games heading towards F2P. Do you?

Why do people cite incorrect information?

Rift does not have a cash shop or RMT shop. They have 1, count it, 1 mount that you could buy, and they only did that because it was part of the korean collector's edition, so they did it to make sure if some of the western players wanted it they could. Trion doesn't do any of the things like WOW, for example, they dont sell mounts, they dont sell server transfers, they dont sell name changes, etc etc. As a matter of fact, most of the things blizzard charges 20-25 dollars for, Trion gives you for free. You can transfer servers once per week, there is in an game NPC you can visit to change literally anything about how you look except gender which you use in game currency to do.

So, no, the subscription model is not dead. The issue is that no game gas come out with the exception of Rift that can deliver the goods to justify a subscription model.

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

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Originally posted by tiefighter25

I see a lot of people saying that WoW is a bad example of a succesful sub model. Some arguing that its sub numbers are inflated due to Asian time played based subs, some arguing that it is an anomoly, some arguing that people are just over invested in their charcters.

Fine, let's assume that is all true. We will disregard WoW's 8 years as a succesful sub-based model with a new expansion looming around the corner.

What about Eve? I expect to hea that Eve doesn't count because it's a niche game. Fine, let's discount Eve.

Unfortunately that doesn't explain RIft.

Before you argue that it has less subscribers then SWTOR, I would remind you that it turns a profit and is adding content at a voracious rate. Also, it is not a niche game. Rift is many regards the King Daddy of all WoW clones.

Just as an intresting asside, in general, I see several people knocking Rift for its smallish player base, and a few moments later state that SWTOR is the second most popular MMO in the West and that haing a WoW sized playerbase isn't the measuring stick for success. How they reconcile having two divergent opinions simultaneously, I'm not sure.

I actually wouldn't discount Eve or Rift in the discussion. You also can't leave out the failing sub based MMOs (SWTOR + TSW being the most prominent atm). You also then need to look at the number of successful games that are currently F2P DDO, LotRO, Aion, Fallen Earth, Champions Online, STO, every other PWE game, FlyFF and other Gpotato games, Silk Road, every single SOE game, should I keep going or is it clear that F2P is more profitable and successful for a company?

If you want I can explain away Eve and Rift as well. Eve is a singular experience you can't find any place else. If you want to play this style of game, pay the sub, or gtfo. They also clearly demonstrated plans to go F2P that were quickly rejected by the community. Rumors are that WoD will be....F2P.

Rift is easily explained by venture capital. Trion just borrowed $80 million from a Canadian teacher's pension fund last year. They also have venture capital for their games in development - EoN, Defiance, Warface, etc. So the subs for Rift are just icing on the cake. They are far from the sole force funding development of the title. Also all that sub money everyone paid sure didn't earn them a free expansion. You get to pay for the content you already paid for the development of. You'll also note that every other Trion title in development is what? FREE TO PLAY.